raganwald

11 ms·

91.
by raganwald 13y ago
We have a special on combinators this evening. Why not try a side order? function explicitize (fn) { return function () { return fn.apply(null, p(arguments, this)); } } Now you can write: foo.prototype
92.
by raganwald 13y ago
Using function expressions has some quite subtle consequences (hoisting, accidental/unintended closures) which you automatically avoid when using function declarations. Obviously, there is the issue of hoisting the function's ex
93.
by raganwald 13y ago
Driving a car. Renting a car. Staying in a hotel room. Flying on a plane. Opening a bank account. Many, many things in life require having money. It's amazing how that's accepted as normal but somehow outrageous when voting is
94.
by raganwald 13y ago
This is the company that shamed its own customers by calling them "dinosaurs" for not upgrading to new versions of Office. In a multi-million dollar advertising campaign. When it comes to their marketing, absolutely nothing surpri
95.
by raganwald 13y ago
I said noting about what you should or shouldn't do, but I did point out that your tone was combative. And your reply is that I have bullshit. Well, that really speaks for itself: You're a fair-minded, egalitarian, meritocratic, o
96.
by raganwald 13y ago
Just so you know, your tone is extremely off-putting. It doesn't come across as genuine asking the question, but are instead whining about how you are being forced to change and you don't want to change and don't see why you
97.
by raganwald 13y ago
Yes! There are two blog posts here, both interesting, but not deeply connected. One is about false proxies, which is specifically about people manipulating perceptions. The other is about getting "measurably better cheese" but not
98.
by raganwald 13y ago
I'm not confused, and I don't expect them to have any desire for traffic. That's why I link to it even though there's more than a few people who believe it hurts the way my posts are ranked. They do their thing without g
99.
by raganwald 13y ago
I link to HN discussions in my own posts, but I don't give a damn about the ranking algorithm, I just want to direct readers to a place where they can have a discussion. If HN is ignoring votes from them, or penalizing my pages, or wha
100.
by raganwald 13y ago
These days, "Sane person vs. Conspiracy nut" is a false dichotomy.
101.
by raganwald 13y ago
No it isn't about languages implementing missing features, but we still have this experience of reinventing Lisp when writing applications in today's languages. We may not need to re-invent memory management, but I notice that the
102.
by raganwald 13y ago
Just a personal view, but my feeling about Lisp and SmallTalk is that they have opposing views of DSLs. Lisp culture seems to celebrate "bottom-up programming," While SmallTalk seems to celebrate writing programs that are unmistak
103.
by raganwald 13y ago
I added it afterwards as an inside joke about arguing what Dr. Kay did or didn't mean decades later. Dr. Kay is still alive and doing good work of a different nature, but the gap between computer science theory and industry practice is
104.
by raganwald 13y ago
What aggrandizement is this? Or is the very idea of quoting Mr. Kay odious to you? I think this is a simple case of you having an axe to grind, and my post being a rough surface.
105.
by raganwald 13y ago
My original point is Alan Kay has made a hobby of co-opting virtually any paradigmatic trend or fad that has arisen since his original work on Smalltalk, usually claiming Smalltalk did it first/better/whatever. Lisp was co-optin
106.
by raganwald 13y ago
NEVER MIND: I tried rewriting the opening as your comment suggests, and it looks better. Thanks.
107.
Was Alan Kay wrong? And why does that matter?(braythwayt.com)
31 points by raganwald 13y ago|30 comments
108.
by raganwald 13y ago
The trouble is, the law cuts both ways: "You can go out and spec a similar machine to the new Mac pro, but should you?" So if we adopt the law wholesale, we can editorialize by reversing the premise we wish to imply.
109.
by raganwald 13y ago
I have spent most of my life working in offices. I don't know or care how elevators are engineered, what you have to do to prevent the HVAC from breeding Legionnaire's disease, or how many amps of power you need for each cubicle.
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by raganwald 13y ago
Then it has "Rebounded to within its normal trading range."
111.
by raganwald 13y ago
No, it isn't sarcasm. Online communities need moderation to thrive. If you allow people to insult each other at will, eventually you drive all the thoughtful folks away: We have better things to do than constantly point out Discussion
112.
by raganwald 13y ago
Let me see now: You start your comment with an ad hominem attack on the author and then move to making an unsubstantiated claim that contradicts the experience of Every. Single. Online. Community. I don't think you're contributing
113.
by raganwald 13y ago
To put it another way, "Correlation between certain tools and smart people does not imply causality." Or exclusivity, for that matter.
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by raganwald 13y ago
if your system doesn't encourage remixing, it's ultimately doomed to failure. However, never forget that the market for IT can stay irrational longer than you can stay patient. Cobol is more than fifty years old. People are stil
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by raganwald 13y ago
The bottom line with Kickstarter is that it's a great idea, but 1. It's vulnerable to gaming, and 2. There are financial rewards for gaming Kickstarter. I conjecture that 3. It will become overrun with flim-flam projects if it doe
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by raganwald 13y ago
I feel for jasonfried. If you build a business and stick to it, being careful not to open a new business that might disappoint your customers if you close it, you become fodder for "disruption." But if you have the courage to try
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by raganwald 13y ago
I don't know how horse auctions work, but I wouldn't compare openly bidding on your own property with using shill accounts to bid someone up and then retracting your own winning bid.
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by raganwald 13y ago
And of course, some people think they can create and engage in "disruption of old-line industries" for many of the same reasons.
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by raganwald 13y ago
I work in an environment like this now, and it's fine, because we have a review culture. I don't think that technology can every impose a cultural shift by itself.
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by raganwald 13y ago
You are describing a construction checklist. Things to be done, like run unit tests before deploying, implement feature 12345, or weld a brace plate over the bolted supports. Construction checklists are objective and empirical. Whereas a su

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